Del Mar does not know how to time a 5 furlong turf race
 

Watch the replays. At least half the time, the fractions posted on the screen are off by a second or two, and are "corrected" after the race.

The Gulfstream Park of the West. :)

Trakus still sucks at timing races and has since inception. It should never have been made the official timer anywhere. It cost that one Baffert horse that won the Pacific Classic a track record that he clearly earned. How a track like Del Mar still uses it is beyond me.

EDIT:

I was wrong about Game on Dude, it was actually the beam timing system that erred in the 2013 Pacific Classic and unfortunately may have helped lead to Trakus being adopted as official. Trakus actually got that race pretty close.

https://timeformusblog.com/2013/08/2...thless-timing/

I noticed the same thing this past Sunday when a race posted an opening quarter in 24 and change.

First race on Wednesday, they did it again! First quarter of the 5 furlong turf race in 24 4/5!

This has been going on since 5f turf races first popped up at Del Mar.

It's reminiscent of the hand times at the high school track meets of my youth. A couple of seconds off was not such a big deal in the 2 mile, but their 100 meter times were unusable.

I'm not discounting the issue of the times on video during the races being different than the times displayed after the race and/or the times in the chart and data feeds.

The most important question IMO is whether the final times in the chart, and data feeds, are correct or not because that effects the speed figure makers as well as the PP lines in subsequent races.

Given I have not heard from CJ, which I would if there were errors in the chart and data feed, the end result is the times are correct when the race is official and in the data going forward.

CJ, Do I have it right that the times for these races in the chart data are correct?

To be totally honest, I just don't have time this time of year when so many tracks are running to go back and verify all the times when there is a problem. My assistant does California tracks and he just notes the races as hand timed (as is also noted in the charts) and makes the figures based on those. The note is very important as it signifies there was a problem. We then know if the race time looks out of place there is a reason why. It is a really good addition Equibase has made to the charts and hopefully will find its way to the PPs some day.

Quick example, very simplified:

Race time (hand timed race) 59, projected figure of 100, 59 converts to 110 figure, projected variant of 10 fast.

Race time (well timed race) 58, projected figure of 110, 58 converts to 120 figure, projected variant of 20 fast.

Thanks to the note I know that it isn't a good idea to combine these races and have one variant for both races. Without it I have to figure out if the first race was really just worse than projections, the latter better, or a combination of both. If I don't know the first is hand timed I'll probably get them both wrong.

Most times at Del Mar there is only one 5f race on turf per day so we can make the figures from the hand time. There is no value added for getting an exact time. It would be nice to time the races and get fractional times electronically, but it is difficult to do with video and very time consuming. Frankly I don't trust the fractions at all when they are hand timed. It is an impossible job, particularly when temp rails are up and the poles don't correspond to when the time is taken. I remove the fractions and bypass pace numbers for those races.

They did it again Friday. 24 flat was posted for the opening 1/4 mile. I think they click on the stopwatch when the last horse loads into the gate or something.

It is something with Trakus, the hand times are usually fairly good in SoCal. How they haven't bothered to get it right after years of errors is beyond me. I don't why Del Mar continues to pay them.

This is when I miss Cratos to lose his mind over this.

The third today was botched and the hand time in the charts is brutally bad at all calls.

They are paying for the chicklets, the only thing trakus does reasonably well.

Ah, initially I thought you were referring to Arrogate at GP, also Trakus of course, (and you are also quoted here): :ThmbUp:


https://www.paulickreport.com/horsep...ecord-pegasus/

Does it really matter? It happens at every track to some degree